THE MINING REGION.
The sun was throwing his morning beams upon the tree-tops of the
Apostle Islands, as our little steamer, chartered for the occasion at
Superior, rounded the promontory of the main-land, turned its prow
southward, and glided into the harbor of Bayfield, on the southern
shore of the lake.
We had made the passage from Superior City during the night, and were
on deck at daybreak to see the beauties of the islands, of which so
much has been written by explorers and tourists. The scenery is not
bold, but beautiful. Perhaps there is no place on the lake where more
charming vistas open to the eye, or where there is such a succession of
entrancing views.
The islands, eighteen in number, lie north of the promontory. They
would appear as high hills, with rounded summits, crowned with a dense
forest growth, if the waters were drained off; for all around, between
the islands and the mainland, are deep soundings. There is no harbor on
the Atlantic coast, none in the world, more accessible than Bayfield,
or more securely land-locked. It may be approached during the wildest
storm, no matter which way the wind is blowing. When the northeasters
raise a sea as terrible as that which sometimes breaks upon Nahant, the
captains of steamers and schooners on Lake Superior run for the Apostle
Islands.
Bayfield is about sixty miles from Superior City, and is the first
harbor where vessels can find shelter east of the head of the lake. The
Apostle Islands seem to have been dumped into the lake for the benefit
of the mighty tide of commerce which in the coming years is to float
upon this inland sea.
"It is," said our captain, "the only first-class harbor on the lake. It
can be approached in all weathers; the shores are bold, the water deep,
the anchorage excellent, and the ice leaves it almost two weeks earlier
in spring than the other harbors at the head of the lake."
The town of Bayfield is named for an officer of the Royal Engineers,
who was employed years ago in surveying the lake. His work was
well done, and till recently his charts have been relied on by the
sailing-masters; but the surveys of the United States Engineers, now
approaching completion, are more minute and accurate.
The few houses that make up the town are beautifully located, on the
western side of the bay. Madeline Island, the largest of the group,
lies immediately in front, and shelters the harbor and town from the
northeast storms.
The scream of the steamer's whistle rings sharply on the morning
air,--while main-land and island, harbor and forest, repeat its echoes.
It wakes up all the braves, squaws, and pappooses in the wigwams and
log-houses of the Chippewa reservation, and all the inhabitants of
Bayfield. The sun is just making his appearance when we run alongside
the pier. It is an early hour for a dozen strangers, with sharp-set
appetites, to make a morning call,--more than that, to drop in thus
unceremoniously upon a private citizen for breakfast.
There being no hotel in the place, we are put to this strait. Possibly
old Nokomis, who is cooking breakfast in a little iron pot with a big
piece knocked out of its rim, who squats on the ground and picks out
the most savory morsels with her fingers, would share her meal with
us, but she does not invite us to breakfast, nor do we care to make
ourselves at home in the wigwam.
But there is rare hospitality awaiting us. A gentleman who lives in a
large white house in the centre of the town, Captain Vaughn, though not
through with his morning nap when we steam up the harbor, is wide awake
in an instant.
I wonder if there is another housewife in the United States who would
provide such an ample repast as that which, in an incredibly short
space of time, appeared on the table, prepared by Mrs. Vaughn,--such a
tender steak, mealy potatoes, nice biscuit, delicious coffee, berries
and sweet milk; a table-cloth as white as the driven snow; and the
hostess the picture of health, presiding at the table with charming
ease and grace, not at all disturbed by such an avalanche of company at
such an hour!
Where the breakfast came from, or who cooked it so quickly, is an
unexplained mystery; and then there was a basketful of lunch put up by
somebody for us to devour while coasting about the bay, and the hostess
the while found time to talk with us, to sit down to the parlor organ
and charm us with music. So much for a Bayfield lady, born in Ohio, of
stanch Yankee stock.
Embarking on Captain Vaughn's little steam-yacht, we go dancing along
the shores, now running near the bluffs to examine the sandstone
formation like that of the Hudson, or looking up to the tall pines
waving their dark green plumes, or beholding the lumbermen felling
the old monarchs and dragging them with stout teams to the Bayfield
saw-mills. A run of about fifteen miles brings us to the city of
Ashland, situated at the head of the bay. It makes quite an imposing
appearance when you are several miles distant, and upon landing you
find that you have been _imposed_ upon. Somebody came here years ago,
laid out a town, surveyed the lots, cut out magnificent avenues through
the forest, found men who believed that Ashland was to be a great
city, who bought lots and built houses; but the crowd did not come; the
few who came soon turned their backs upon the place, leaving all their
improvements. One German family remains. Two pigs were in possession of
a parlor in one deserted house, and a cow quietly chewing her cud in
another.
A mile east of Ashland is Bay City, another place planned by
speculators, but which probably might be purchased at a discount.
The country around Bayfield is in a primitive condition now, but the
time is rapidly approaching for a change. By and by this will be a
great resort for tourists and seekers after health. Nature has made it
for a _sanitarium_. No mineral springs have been discovered warranted
to cure all diseases, but nowhere in this Northwest has nature
compounded purer air, distilled sweeter water, or painted lovelier
landscapes. The time will come when the people of Chicago, Milwaukie,
and other Western cities, seeking rest and recreation during the summer
months, will flee to this harbor of repose. The fish are as numerous
here, and as eager to bite the hook, as anywhere else on the lake,
while the streams of the main-land abound with trout. By and by this
old red sandstone will be transformed into elegant mansions overlooking
the blue waters, and it would not be strange if commerce reared a great
mart around this harbor. The charter of the Northern Pacific Railroad
extends to this point, and as the road would pass through heavily
timbered lands, the company will find it for their interest to open the
line, as it will also form a connecting link between the West and the
iron region of Lake Superior.
But whether a city rises here, whether a railroad is constructed or
not, let me say to any one who wants to pull out big trout that this is
the place.
An Indian who has been trying his luck shows a string of five-pounders,
caught in one of the small streams entering the bay. There is no sport
like trout-fishing. Think of stealing on tiptoe along the winding
stream, dropping your hook into the gurgling waters, and feeling a
moment later something tugging, turning, pulling, twisting, running,
now to the right, now to the left, up stream, down stream, making the
thin cord spin, till your heart leaps into your throat through fear
of its breaking,--fear giving place to hope, hope to triumph, when at
length you land a seven-pounder on the green and mossy bank! You find
such trout in the streams that empty into the lake opposite the Apostle
Islands,--trout mottled with crimson and gold!
Bidding good by to our generous host and hostess we take an
eastward-bound steamer in the evening for a trip down the lake,
stopping for an hour or two at Ontonagon, then steaming on, rounding
Keweenaw Point during the night, and reaching Marquette in the morning.
Fishing-boats are dancing on the waves, yachts scudding along the
shore, tourists rambling over the rocks at our right hand, throwing
their lines, pulling up big trout, steamers and schooners are lying in
the harbor, and thrift, activity, and enterprise is everywhere visible.
We see an immense structure, resembling a railway bridge, built out
into the harbor. It is several hundred feet in length, and twenty or
more in height. A train of cars comes thundering down a grade, and out
upon the bridge, while men running from car to car knock out here and
there a bolt or lift a catch, and we hear a rumbling and thundering,
and feel the wharf tremble beneath our feet. It is not an earthquake;
they are only unloading iron ore from the cars into bins.
A man by means of machinery raises a trap-door, and the black mass,
starting with a rush, thunders once more as it plunges into the hold of
a schooner. It requires but a few minutes to take in a cargo. And then,
shaking out her sails, the schooner shapes her course eastward along
the "Pictured Rocks" for the St. Mary's Canal, bound for Cleveland,
Erie, or Chicago with her freight of crude ore to be smelted and rolled
where coal is near at hand.
The town is well laid out. Although the business portion was destroyed
by fire not many months ago, it has been rebuilt. There are elegant
residences, churches, school-houses, and stores. Men walk the streets
as if they had a little more business on hand than they could well
attend to.
The men who used to frequent this region to trade with the Indians
knew as early as 1830 that iron existed in the hills. But it was not
till 1845, just a quarter of a century ago, that any attempt was made
to test the ore. Dr. Jackson, of Boston, who visited Lake Superior in
1844, pronounced it of excellent quality. He informed Mr. Lyman Pray,
of Charlestown, Mass., of its existence, and that the Indians reported
a "mountain" of it not far from Marquette. Mr. Pray at once started
on an exploring expedition, reached Lake Superior, obtained an Indian
guide, penetrated the forest, and found the hills filled with ore.
About the same time a gentleman named Everett obtained half a ton of
it, which the Indians and half-breeds carried on their backs to the
Carp River, and transported it to the lake in canoes.
It was smelted, but was so different from that of Pennsylvania that
the iron-masters shook their heads. Some declared that it was of no
particular value, others that it could not be worked.
The Pittsburg iron-men pronounced it worthless. But Mr. Everett
persevered, sent a small quantity to the Coldwater forge, where it
was smelted and rolled into a bar, from which he made a knife-blade,
and was convinced that the metal was superior in quality to any other
deposit in the country.
The Jackson Company was at once formed for mining in the iron and
copper region. The copper fever was at its height, and the company was
organized with a view of working both metals if thought advisable. A
forge was erected on the Carp River in 1847, making four blooms a day,
each about four feet long and eight inches thick.
Another was built, in 1854, by a company from Worcester, Mass., but so
small was the production that in 1856 the shipment only reached five
thousand tons. The superior qualities of the metal began to be known.
Other companies were formed and improvements made; railroads and docks
were constructed, and the production has had a steady increase, till it
has reached a high figure.
There are fourteen companies engaged in mining,--two have just
commenced, while the others are well developed. The production of
the twelve principal mines for the year 1868 will be seen from the
following figures:--
Tons.
Jackson, 131,707
Cleveland, 102,213
Marquette, 7,977
Lake Superior, 105,745
New York, 45,665
Lake Angeline, 27,651
Edwards, 17,360
Iron Mountain, 3,836
Washington, 35,757
New England, 8,257
Champion, 6,255
Barnum, 14,380
_______
Total, 506,803
The increase over the previous year is between forty and fifty thousand
tons. The yield for 1869 was about 650,000 tons. The entire production
of all the mines up to the close of 1868 is 2,300,000 tons.
Iron mining in this region is in its infancy; and yet the value of the
metal produced last year amounts to _eighteen million dollars_.
The cause for this rapid development is found in the fact that the
Lake Superior ore makes the best iron in the world. Persistent efforts
were made to cry it down, but those who were engaged in its production
invited rigid tests.
Its tenacity, in comparison with other qualities, will be seen by the
following tabular statement:--
Swedish, 59
English Cable bolt, 59
Russian, 76
Lake Superior, 89-1/2
When this fact was made known, railroad companies began to use Lake
Superior iron for the construction of locomotives, car-wheels, and
axles. Boiler builders wanted it. Those who tried it were eager to
obtain more, and the result is seen in the rapidly increasing demand.
The average cost of mining and delivering the ore in cars at the mines
is estimated at about $2 per ton. It is shipped to Cleveland at a cost
of $4.35, making $6.35 when laid on the dock in that city, where it is
readily sold for $8, leaving a profit of about $1.65 per ton for the
shipper. Perhaps, including insurance and incidentals, the profit may
be reduced to about $1.25 per ton. It will be seen that this is a very
remunerative operation.
About one hundred furnaces in Ohio and Pennsylvania use Lake Superior
ore almost exclusively, while others mix it with the ores of those
regions.
A large amount is smelted at Lake Superior, where charcoal is used.
The forests in the vicinity of the mines are rapidly disappearing.
The wide-spreading sugar-maple, the hardy yellow birch, the feathery
hackmatack and evergreen hemlock are alike tumbled into the coal-pit
to supply fuel for the demands of commerce.
The charcoal consumed per ton in smelting costs about eleven cents
per bushel. For reducing a ton of the best ore about a hundred and
ten bushels are required; for a ton of the poorest about a hundred
and forty bushels, giving an average of $13 per ton. The cost of
mining is, as has already been stated, about $2 per ton. To this must
be added furnace-labor, interest on capital employed, insurance,
freight, commission, making the total cost about $35 a ton. As the iron
commands the highest price in the market, it will be seen that the iron
companies of Lake Superior are having an enormous income.
Some men who purchased land at government price are on the high road
to fortune. One man entered eighty acres of land, which now nets him
_twenty-four thousand dollars per annum_!
A railroad runs due west from Marquette, gaining by steep gradients the
general level of the ridge between Superior and Michigan. It is called
the Marquette and Ontonagon Railroad, and will soon form an important
link in the great iron highway across the continent. It is about twenty
miles from Marquette to the principal mines, which are also reached by
rail from Escanaba, on Green Bay, a distance of about seventy miles.
The ore is generally found in hills ranging from one to five hundred
feet above the level of the surrounding country. The elevations can
hardly be called mountains; they are knolls rather. They are iron warts
on Dame Nature's face. They are partially covered with earth,--the
slow-forming deposits of the alluvial period.
There are five varieties of ore. The most valuable is what is called
the specular hematite, which chemically is known as a pure _anhydrous
sesquioxide_. This ore yields about sixty-five per cent of pure iron.
It is sometimes found in conjunction with red quartz, and is then known
as mixed ore.
The next in importance is a soft hematite, resembling the ores of
Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It is quite porous, is more easily
reduced than any other variety, and yields about fifty per cent of pure
iron.
The magnetic ores are found farther west than those already described.
The Michigan, Washington, Champion, and Edwards mines are all magnetic.
Sometimes the magnetic and specular lie side by side, and it is a
puzzle to geologists and chemists alike to account for the difference
between them. As yet we are not able to understand by what subtle
alchemy the change has been produced.
Another variety is called the silicious hematite, which is more
difficult of reduction than the others. It varies in richness, and
there is an unlimited supply.
The fifth variety is a silicious hematite found with manganese, which,
when mixed with other ores, produces an excellent quality of iron. Very
little of this ore has been mined as yet, and its relative value is not
ascertained.
The best iron cannot be manufactured from one variety, but by mixing
ores strength and ductility both are obtained. England sends to Russia
and Sweden for magnetic ores to mix with those produced in Lancashire,
for the manufacture of steel. The fires of Sheffield would soon go
out if the manufactures in that town were dependent on English ore
alone. The iron-masters there could not make steel good enough for a
blacksmith's use, to say nothing of that needed for cutlery, if they
were cut off from foreign magnetic ores.
Here, at Lake Superior, those necessary for the production of the best
of steel lie side by side. A mixture of the hematite and magnetic gives
a metal superior, in every respect, to any that England can produce.
This one fact settles the question of the future of this region. It is
to become one of the great iron-marts of the world. It is to give, by
and by, the supremacy to America in the production of steel.
It is already settled, by trial, that every grade of iron now in use in
arts and manufactures can be produced here at Lake Superior by mixing
the various ores.
The miners are a hardy set of men, rough, uncouth, but enterprising.
They live in small cottages, make excellent wages, drink whiskey, and
rear large families. How happens it that in all new communities there
is such an abundance of children? They throng every doorway, and by
every house we see them tumbling in the dirt. Nearly every woman has a
child in her arms.
We cannot expect to see the refinements and luxuries of old communities
in a country where the stumps have not yet been cleared from the
streets, and where the spruces and hemlocks are still waving above the
cottages of the settlers, but here are the elements of society. These
hard-handed men are developing this region, earning a livelihood for
themselves and enriching those who employ them. Towns are springing
into existence. We find Ishpeming rising out of a swamp. Imagine a
spruce forest standing in a bog where the trees are so thick that there
is hardly room enough for the lumbermen to swing their axes, the swamp
being a stagnant pool of dark-colored water covered with green slime!
An enterprising town-builder purchased this bog for a song, and has
laid out a city. Here it is,--dwelling-houses and stores standing on
posts driven into the mud, or resting on the stumps. He has filled up
the streets with the _débris_ from the mines. Frogs croak beneath the
dwellings, or sun themselves on the sills. The town is not thus growing
from the swamp because there is no solid land, but because the upland
has exhaustless beds of iron ore beneath, too valuable to be devoted to
building purposes.
I have seen few localities so full of promise for the future, not this
one little spot in the vicinity of Marquette, but the entire metallic
region between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.
Look at the locality! It is half-way across the continent. Lake
Michigan laves the southern, Superior the northern shore, while the
St. Lawrence furnishes water-carriage to the Atlantic. A hundred
and fifty miles of rail from Bayfield will give connection with the
navigable waters of the Mississippi. Through this peninsula will yet
lie the shortest route between the Atlantic and Pacific. Westward are
the wheat-fields of the continent, to be peopled by an industrious and
thriving community. There is no point more central than this for easy
transportation.
Here, just where the future millions can be easiest served, exhaustless
deposits of the best ore in the world have been placed by a Divine hand
for the use and welfare of the mighty race now beginning to put forth
its energies on this western hemisphere.
Towns, cities, and villages are to arise amid these hills; the forests
and the hills themselves are to disappear. The product, now worth
seventeen millions of dollars per annum, erelong will be valued at a
hundred millions.
I think of the coming years when this place will be musical with the
hum of machinery; when the stillness of the summer day and the crisp
air of winter will be broken by the songs of men at work amid flaming
forges, or at the ringing anvil. From Marquette, and Bayfield, and
Ontonagon, and Escanaba, from every harbor on these inland seas,
steamers and schooners, brigs and ships, will depart freighted with
ore; hither they will come, bringing the products of the farm and
workshop. Heavily loaded trains will thunder over railroads, carrying
to every quarter of our vast domain the metals manufactured from the
mines of Lake Superior.
We have but to think of the capabilities of this region, its extent
and area, the increase of population, the development of resources,
the construction of railways, the growth of cities and towns; we have
only to grasp the probabilities of the future, to discern the dawning
commercial greatness of this section of our country.